Precious Plastic
by The Letter Atrophy
Summary: Every nose is different. Mandy only wants to look like a person. Third in a series, implied BillyxMandy.


Precious Plastic  
_by "The Letter Atrophy"_

Third in a series! It would probably help a little to read "Hamster Tragedy" and "The Mind Block" before this, but in case you haven't, these fics along with this one take place fifteen years after the end of GABM. Mandy is working for Irwin and attracted to Billy, and Mr. Snuggles is still not dead. Exciting, huh? That's so what I was going for.

This fic is honestly more of a follow-up to "The Mind Block" than anything else. But, I worked on it for five months, throwing out three alternate endings before coming up with this. And anyone who calls me on the hasty ending will be... uh, making me angry. There's a reason it ends so suddenly. Anyway, I suppose the concept this story breaks from is fairly obvious. How many times have characters on the show pointed out Mandy's noselessness? And she's always seemed pretty indifferent.

X

You allow your eyes to wander from the magazine clutched in your hands to the decorations on the walls. They're all of women- beautiful women. You notice that, predictably, these women all have perfectly constructed faces, with everything on them they're supposed to have, and nothing else. They look so natural... but you realize how hypocritical it would be if they were.

All of them have noses, that is, the centers of their faces are graced with an oddly curved instrument, starting between their eyes and extending only to about an inch above their full, stick-infused lips. This instrument, you are aware, is what gives them the ability to smell. You know that the two deep chambers on the ends of the delicate forms are called_nostrils, _and that's where the odors enter their systems, to be assessed by their brains. And you find this whole process to be beautiful; you think that if you were anyone else, it might have made you smile.

Every nose is different. One of the women has a very young, child-like face, and to top it off, her nose is small and seems to point modestly upward. Another woman looks sleek and sophisticated, and her nose is thinner but straighter. You like this look better, if only a little. A third's face is sexy and seductive. Her nose is long and smooth, perfectly curved and not too wide (it's very nice). You wonder what your own would have looked like, had you been born with a nose. Still, now you have the chance to choose. You wonder if there's a certain science to it- if some noses wouldn't fit your large, round face. Through careful study, you've realized that the noses that look best match the skin color of the rest of the wearer's face. You know you want your nose to match the color of your face. However, you've yet to come to any other decisions- should it be long, short?

The noses on the women in the pictures seem to form assumptions in your mind about their personalities... but do you even have a personality to form opinions of? All you are is cynical and lethargic. Do you need to have emotions to have a personality- or is your emotionlessness the very root of other's image of you? In that case, it seems to make sense that you'd lack a nose, as a symbol for your lack of emotion. But you've made up your mind. You want one. You've come to accept that no matter how much you try to separate yourself from the norm of human ideals, you still want to appeal to the opposite sex. Or at least to one member of the opposite sex. He's never even noticed your lack of a nose- he never notices anything. You know it's stupid to stress so much over impressing a boy who is impressed by earthworms. But you want to be attractive, regardless of whether it makes sense. Just like all women.

When you were ten, you swore to yourself you didn't care: about your lack of a nose, about the opposite sex, about anything mortal. Because mortal was stupid. All of human civilization is nothing but an attempt to soothe themselves on their way to the grave, and to do this, they feel it's necessary to make their own grave diggers to help them end peacefully. It's sickening, yes, but you still want a nose, so that you and Billy can make some grave diggers, too. You disgust yourself- complying with these human ideals. Fifteen years ago, you were doing better.

A woman of about forty years, who has an especially broad nose, bustles into the waiting room, clutching a clipboard. Her reading glasses hang from a chain, and she grabs them and pulls them, with the clipboard, toward her eyes. "Who's next?" she mumbles to herself. "Ah, Mandy!"

At the mention of your name, you look towards her with nothing resembling an expression. Still, though your face doesn't show it, your excitement creates a physical jolt through your body, and you grab the sides of your chair, thereby forcing yourself into a standing position. You walk towards the woman with the broad nose, and, "I'm Mandy," you utter monotonously.

"And it's your..." she scans your face and her eyes widen. Without casting another glance toward her paper, she knows why you're here. "...Nose!" she finishes, and you nod boredly. Avoiding eye contact, you instead stare directly into her own nose: it's broad, and has barely any dimension at all. It's flat, and it makes her look flat: precisely like a tall, flat frog.

"Yeah. Nose. I want one." You point to your own, blank face.

She smiles a little, possibly with nervousness. You wonder if she's ever seen a noseless person before, but quickly decide that she most certainly hasn't. "Right this way, dear..." and she leads you to a door. The door reads Dr. Pinkton, on a dirty, brass-colored plaque. You can see, through a smudgy, wired window, a small room with perfectly white walls, decorated distastefully with many posters. Predictably, these posters depict noses and lips in all colors and shapes. Your broad-nosed host opens the door, revealing a man in a lab-coat and a lavender dress shirt, and a navy blue tie with white stars. Since his name is undoubtedly Dr. Pinkton, you don't find it surprising that although he is likely homosexual, he is almost pointedly not wearing anything pink.

"Hello!" says Dr. Pinkton, pleasantly, and the woman scurries from the room. He scans you, as she did, and raises his eyebrows. "You want a nose," he assumes.

Still lacking an expression, "Yeah," you say. "What kind of a nose should I get?"

He smiles, which causes his small nose to wrinkle at the bridge. "Well that depends on what you want the nose to say! Small, buttony noses tell of innocence, and long straight noses indicate snobbery, and-"

"I know that. But... it has to be the right kind of nose, and I don't know what the hell that means. What kind of a nose would look good on me?"

Dr. Pinkton reflects for a moment, then asks you, "Why do you want this nose?" shifting in his seat.

You stare at him villainously. "Why do you think?" you ask. "If you were born without a nose, wouldn't you want one?" after a few seconds in silence, you continue, somewhat embarrassedly. "Because of a person. A male person. I want to look attractive- or at least, I want to look like a person. Before you glue any plastic on my face, just tell me what kind of a nose would look good on me, and... uh, reflect my personality, or whatever."

This seems to have stumped the only person in the room wearing purple. Fingers encircle his chin in what you assume is contemplation, and his well-plucked eyebrows now mimic the shape of the letter V. The bridge of his nose is wrinkled again. He opens his mouth, as if to speak, but seems frozen in place. You raise one brow and stare at him bemusedly. After a moment of observing this awkward, silent prodding, he says, "Well... tell me about yourself."

Now you find yourself slightly vexed. You didn't come here for a conversation- you had assumed and hoped that the nose implantation process would be a simple one, but instead a man with a star-speckled tie was asking you questions about your personality. You told him of your disapproval, and he only nodded, with what looked a little like a smile. "What do you _want_ me to say?" you ask Dr. Pinkton. "You want me to tell you what I do for a living? I'm a collator. I sort papers. It's _fascinating._ I don't have a personality. I don't have hobbies, or interests, or emotions. I just want a fucking nose. I just want to look like a fucking person!"

Pinkton nods again, apparently unfazed by your outburst, and his lips assume a folding motion: another tell-tale sign of contemplation. "Okay... well, you have a sort of large, circular face, so one of our larger noses would probably suit you better. Now the average..." he looks over you, and you're sure he's wondering about wording. "Um, nose job is pretty fairly priced, but since the implantation of an entirely new nose is a much more complicated surgery, we'll probably have to at least double the cost. You say you collate papers for a living? Does your insurance plan cover cosmetic surgeries?"

"No," you say automatically. Insurance?

The doctor seems discouraged. Finally he looks you in the eye, with an apologetic expression, and says, "I'm sorry... I... this going to cost you several thousand dollars and- I'm not entirely sure, to be frank, that you can afford it." He uses twice as many words as he needs. He thinks if he sounds smart enough he can hide the fact that he's insulting you.

Pinkton's face no longer suggests pity: it now has embarrassment written all over it. You scowl slightly at him, but have no other response. Instead, before you know it your hand is on the doorknob.

You march pointedly from the examination room, out the lobby, past the tall, flat frog, and back to your hideous car. After unlocking it, you wrench the sticky, ancient door open, slam your own body into the ripped leather driver's seat, and slam the door shut again. On your way home, you stop by the drug store. Your first and only stop is the toy aisle, filled beyond capacity with plastic jewelry and tiny models of cars. As you scan the aisle with a hint of repulsion, a plastic object in a hideous shade of green catches your eye. "Will this be all for you today, ma'am?" says the cashier, holding up your prize in demonstration.

Twenty minutes later, "Honey I'm home," you call sarcastically, and it comes out in a muffle.

The Mind Block turns to face you and gasps. "Mandy, why've you gots a nose?" he says in bewilderment. His clammy hand reaches toward your face, pulling off a green plastic lump and snapping the elastic that binds it to your face. He glances at the plastic pig snout in his hand and laughs. "Can I wear it now?"


End file.
